


Follow My Voice

by keenquing



Category: Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: F/M, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-09
Updated: 2012-04-09
Packaged: 2017-11-03 07:58:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 603
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/379126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/keenquing/pseuds/keenquing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's the little missteps that can make them fall apart, but it's also the smallest gestures that bring them back together. Written to fill the prompt 'helping him through the nightmares' at comment_fic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Follow My Voice

_And if you've got no other choice  
You know you can follow my voice  
Through the dark turns and noise  
Of this wicked little town_  
 **-Hedwig and the Angry Inch 'Wicked Little Town'**

It's a process, growing back together. A long, nasty one. Finnick was right about it taking ten times longer to put yourself back together after you fall apart, but it's not as simple as just that. It takes so long, I think, because it's not straightforward. Just because one day is good doesn't mean the next will be as well. And when there's two of you, sometimes you open up each other's cracks without meaning to. 

A thoughtless word or turned shoulder at the wrong moment can set one of us back weeks. Once, seeing my hand around my throat after I'd woken up screaming caused Peeta to hide away in his own house for days out of guilt which of course made me feel guilty as well. 

But it's the small things that help us start closing up the cracks, too. Like what happened a few nights after that, when I was walking the path through the Victor's Village, unable or perhaps just unwilling to sleep because of the monsters I knew would be waiting that I'd have to face alone. 

I don't know what made me go inside that night when I hadn't the four previous. Just that I did, and that I went up the stairs to his room—I can't say if I was thinking of curling up beside him or just talking or what. It doesn't matter, because when I saw him laying there too-still to be _just_ sleeping, I remembered what he'd told me of his own nightmares. How he just woke up 'paralyzed with terror'. 

How his nightmares were almost always about losing me, and with not even a call between us in days....

I could have left, pretending I hadn't seen this and continued to wait for him to come back to me on his own. But that supposedly easy route had never really led us anywhere; I knew I had to reach out to him in some way. So, softly toeing off my boots, I laid down beside him—chest just barely touching his back—set my chin against his shoulder, and quietly started to sing.

I can't tell you what the song was, some quiet soothing thing I half-remembered hearing in my father's voice. It doesn't really matter, though. What does is that it worked. Slowly, his body relaxed against mine, his breathing falling into a more normal pattern. My eyes were closed while I sang, but I felt him turn to face me. By the end of the song he was resting against my shoulder, and I could feel a few tears trailing under my collar. My own throat got a little tight at that, but I made it through.

“Thank you,” he said in a quiet, slightly-creaky voice. “You didn't have to...”

“Yes, I did.” I brushed my fingers through the hair at his temple,then dropped my arm to wrap it around him as I curled my body against his. “Now, shut up. We both need to get some sleep.”

He laughed a little at that and kissed my forehead. “Right. Good night, Katniss.” 

I'll admit that the brush of his lips made me smile a little as I put my head next to his heart. I knew this wouldn't be the last time we'd fall apart, but also that it wouldn't be the last that we found our way back _together_. “Good night, Peeta. Sweet dreams.”


End file.
